


This Close

by orphan_account



Series: King Hans and Queen Anna 'Verse [2]
Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>King Hans and Queen Anna of Arendelle, years after the treasonous Elsa abandoned her kingdom and her sister, share a tender moment. AU in which Elsa did not trigger an eternal winter when she left, and Anna was unable to retrieve her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Close

**Author's Note:**

  * For [immaplatypus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=immaplatypus).



            In the room where she lies, light stains the drawn drapes yellow. Their room, terrible vastness covered by miles upon miles of blankets and spreads, smells of the last gasp of summer roses, in heady August, edges crisp with heat, stems bent and burnt. The temperature never drops, yet Queen Anna shivers under her duvet, night after night spent alone and searching.

            This night, the hallowed, beloved King limps to bed, red hair flecked with the bitter gray of lonesomeness. Today he has fallen off his horse; while hunting, the dogs got the better of him for the first time, and fate loosed the saddle straps until the King had no choice but to release the reins and fall. His calf is an ugly red, his toes purple.

            He curses as he heaves himself onto the bed; Queen Anna stirs. He looks upon her for the first time in days, his gaze tender and tired, bloated hand shaking as he tucks her auburn hair behind her ear—madness has kept her young, even as Elsa surely creaks with age from whatever pit she’s found. If only madness had kept him young, too.

            “…Hans?” she slurs. He cringes and slips beneath the covers, trying to relax his body when her hands wander over his chest, tiny fingers clinging. “What time is it?”

            “Late,” he whispers. It’s barely sunset. He sighs and gives in to her prying, wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her closer. “Go back to sleep.”

            “Alrighty… ” Her youthful face twists in pain; he braces himself. The canopy above him bears little snowflakes in its stitches. “Hans?”

            “Yes, Anna?” Her name stings as it rolls off his tongue, and he hates her for it, and for how their bed always smells of guilt, his and hers.

            “Do you think Elsa is happy, out there?” _Without me_ goes unspoken. Hans withholds a snort.

            “However could she be? You’re right here.” It’s the same answer every night, yet steadily it gets harsher, coarser. Tonight, it’s bitter. Still, Anna smiles and burrows into Hans’s chest; when she lays a faint kiss on the curve of his shoulder, he starts. Her warmth envelops him, it always does, but tonight—tonight, it cascades through his body, weakly prods his aching heart. If he loved her, he might cry for shame.

            If he loved her.

            As it is, he puts a big hand on the back of her head, and runs his fingers through her loose hair. “So soft. I was like you, once. When I was a child.”

            Anna giggles, closer to sleep every moment. “I bet you were a wonderful child.”

            “No, I was a nightmare.” His lips quirk up at her answering laugh. “Truly, though, I was a fool. Too trusting. My brothers had their fun with me, tricking me into writing dirty words on our tutor’s board, eating with my hands in front of our mother, that sort of thing.”

            Here, Anna’s open smile melts into a pout. “How mean of them!”

            “Yes, well, they were only children, too.” He heaves a deep sigh, hand tightening in her hair at the thought of his brothers—dead now, most of them. He releases her when she props herself up on his chest, elbow digging into the mattress, to look him in the eye.

            “’What little Hans doesn’t learn, grown up Hans will never learn,’” she quotes, listing to the side. He stiffens at the old proverb. “I bet if your brothers weren’t mean to you back then, you’d be sweet and cuddly now.”

            Hans forces himself to relax, flashing Anna a weak smile. “Well, that’s what I have you for. You can be as sweet and…” his smile trembles, “… _loving_ as I was.” Anna expends her last bit of energy to kiss him, open-mouthed and happy. He reciprocates as well as he can.

            “Go to sleep, Anna, it’s late.” The sun had dipped below the horizon; the drapes are stained orange, now. Anna hums in agreement and settles back down, beneath the covers.

            “Hans?”

            He sighs and rubs his temples. “Yes?”

            “You’d never… trick me, or lie to me, right?” Her voice is so small, he can picture the child she once was. His chest aches once again.

            “Never.”

            He doesn’t sleep that night; instead, his mind races with, _if I loved her, if I loved her, if I loved her…_

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic in a long while--I know--and it's for this fandom. I'm afraid Hans/Anna has captured my heart in all the wrong ways.
> 
> This is a Christmas gift for my dear friend, immaplatypus, as I was unable to buy her a Kristoff doll. This will just have to do instead, R. 
> 
> Title and first line from what I think is a very Hans/Anna poem, "This Close" by Dorianne Laux:
> 
> In the room where we lie,  
> light stains the drawn shades yellow.  
> We sweat and pull at each other, climb  
> with our fingers the slippery ladders of rib.  
> Wherever our bodies touch, the flesh  
> comes alive. Head and need, like invisible  
> animals, gnaw at my breast, the soft  
> insides of your thighs. What I want  
> I simply reach out and take, no delicacy now,  
> the dark human bread I eat handful  
> by greedy handful. Eyes fingers, mouths,  
> sweet leeches of desire. Crazy woman,  
> her brain full of bees, see how her palms curl  
> into fists and beat the pillow senseless.  
> And when my body finally gives in to it  
> then pulls itself away, salt-laced  
> and arched with its final ache, I am  
> so grateful I would give you anything, anything.  
> If I loved you, being this close would kill me.


End file.
